Brazilian normative data for the Short Form 36 questionnaire, version 2.

Methods: The study Pesquisa Dimensões Sociais das Desigualdades (PDSD) (Social Dimensions of Inequalities) involves 12,423 randomly selected Brazilian men and women aged 18 years old or more from urban and rural areas of the five Brazilian regions, and the information collected included the SF-36 as a measure of health-related quality of life. This provided a unique opportunity to develop age and gender-adjusted normative data for the Brazilian population.

Results: Brazilian men scored substantially higher than women on all eight domains and the two summary component scales of the SF-36.

Psychometric evaluation of the SF-36 (v.2) questionnaire in a probability sample of Brazilian households: results of the survey Pesquisa Dimensões Sociais das Desigualdades (PDSD), Brazil, 2008.

Background: In Brazil, despite the growing use of SF-36 in different research environments, most of the psychometric evaluation of the translated questionnaire was from studies with samples of patients. The purpose of this paper is to examine if the Brazilian version of SF-36 satisfies scaling assumptions, reliability and validity required for valid interpretation of the SF-36 summated ratings scales in the general population.

Methods: 12,423 individuals and their spouses living in 8,048 households were selected from a stratified sample of all permanent households along the country to be interviewed using the Brazilian SF-36 (version 2).

Mechanisms of microregulation of private hospitals by health plan operators.

Objective: To analyze the mechanisms employed by health plan operators for microregulation of clinical management and health care qualification within care-providing hospitals.

Methods: A nation-wide cross-sectional study was carried out. The universe consisted of hospitals which provided care to health plan operators in 2006.

Digital inclusion and health counselors: a policy for the reduction of social inequalities in Brazil.

Inequalities in health conditions remain even twenty years after the implementation of Unified Health System (SUS). This condition burdens social movements exerting social control on the health care area with a continuous fight. In this struggle, the accumulation of political power is related to an increase in the capacity to acquire knowledge and information.

[Factors associated with the use of clinical guidelines by health plan operators and their inpatient care providers].

This paper is aimed at identifying factors related to the use of clinical guidelines by health plan operators and their inpatient care providers in the supplementary care sector in Brazil from the viewpoint of managers. The study is based on two national surveys: one involving 90 health plan operators randomly selected from a universe of 1573, oriented towards characterizing the implementation of clinical guidelines and other tools of clinical governance; and another involving 74 hospitals, selected from a universe of 3817 inpatient care providers, aimed at capturing micro-regulation mechanisms applied by health plan operators and their repercussions on hospital practices. Use of clinical guidelines was reported by 32.

[Health records: evaluation of patient health charts in primary care, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil].

With the purpose of contributing to the evaluation of primary care, a study was conducted based on the quality of patients' health charts, considering the records for care provided in 4 municipalities with more than 100 thousand inhabitants each in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2004. This was a cross-sectional study based on primary data collected from direct consultation of patient charts. A two-stage, probabilistic cluster sample was selected from primary care facilities and consultations/patient charts.

[Cervical cancer as a tracer condition: a proposal for evaluation of primary health care].

The use of tracer conditions as an evaluative technique suggests the possibility of inferring the quality of health care and setting evaluation standards for programmed actions. As a government strategy, primary health care is a key element for reorganization of the Brazilian health care model. This study analyzes the use of cervical cancer as a tracer condition for assessing primary care.

[An analysis of managed care provided by charitable hospitals in Brazil].

This article describes charitable hospitals in Brazil that provide managed care and the health management organizations themselves, considering the level of autonomy by the latter in relation to the hospitals and their degree of management development, based on a nationwide study. A random sample of individual hospitals was drawn from the hospital groups. After refusals and replacements, the final sample consisted of 112 individual hospitals and 10 hospital groups.

[Information technology for health education: two revisions and a proposal].

This paper presents two revisions: one discusses the absorption of information technologies in Health and Education; the other presents a revision of technological concepts applicable to professional healthcare education. The objectives are to demonstrate the relevance of including these technologies in large-scale institutional training projects for healthcare practitioners in Brazil's National Health System, presenting material and political devices for teaching-learning processes that foster the sharing of content, the reusability of educational materials and interdisciplinarity. This paper thus illustrates the possibilities of adopting standards and the development of learning objects as content creation, distribution and management technologies.

[Consumer satisfaction study in philanthropic hospital health plans].

This paper presents the findings of research aimed at identifying and analyzing the argumentation and rationale that justify the satisfaction of consumers with their health plans. The qualitative method applied used the focus group technique, for which the following aspects were defined: the criteria for choosing the health plans which were considered, the composition of the group and its distribution, recruitment strategy, and infrastructure and dynamics of the meetings. The health plan beneficiaries were classified into groups according to their social class, the place where they lived, mainly, the relationship that they established with the health plan operators which enabled us to develop a typology for the plan beneficiaries.

[Philanthropic hospitals and the operation of provider-owned health plans in Brazil].

Objective: To describe the management performance of philanthropic hospitals that operate their own health plans, in comparison with philanthropic hospitals as a whole in Brazil.

Methods: The managerial structures of philanthropic hospitals that operated their own health plans were compared with those seen in a representative group from the philanthropic hospital sector, in six dimensions: management and planning, economics and finance, human resources, technical services, logistics services and information technology. Data from a random sample of 69 hospitals within the philanthropic hospital sector and 94 philanthropic hospitals that operate their own health plans were evaluated.

[Characterization of assistance among philanthropic hospitals in Brazil].

Objective: To characterize the Brazilian philanthropic hospital network and its relation to the public and private sectors of the Sistema Unico de Saude (SUS) [Brazilian Unified Health System].

Methods: This is a descriptive study that took into consideration the geographic distribution, number of beds, available biomedical equipment, health care complexity as well as the productive and consumer profiles of philanthropic hospitals. It is based on a sample of 175 hospitals, within a universe of 1,917, involving 102 distinct institutions.

[Management characteristics in charity hospitals in Brazil].

This paper presents the management characteristics of charity hospitals in Brazil, based on data from a national survey developed in 2001. The sample accounted for the random inclusion of 66 Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) inpatient care providers with less than 599 beds and all 26 hospitals with at least 599 beds. It also included 10 institutions assumed as non-providers of services to the SUS.